<p>Extremely competitive program, accepts around 25 from 200 applicants. Is doing management and life science doable? Sounds like a lot of work. Any thoughts/ previous experiences to share?</p>
<p>I entertained this program for about 10 minutes last November but decided it was way too hard. A bio degree from an Ivy would be tough. A Wharton degree is tough. Combining the two is way too tough. College should be fun. But I could be twisted. There are a couple of dudes on this board who are in the program. Maybe they’ll answer your question.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, A LOT of people who get into Vagelos eventually drop out because of the extreme rigor. If you apply to it, make sure you really want to do this because if you go into the program not really passionate about the material, you will be overwhelmed, apparently.</p>
<p>As OldCollegeTry said, combining the two degrees is tough because it literally is like taking two curriculums at the same time…</p>
<p>^I think you may be confusing the two Vagelos programs. Many people who get into Vegalos Molecular Life Sciences (the College-only program where you double major in Biochem and another science, or major and submatriculate to get a masters in Chem) end up dropping it. No doubt both are really intense, but Vagelos MLS has more of the diehard reputation than LSM simply do to the difficulty of the classes they are required to take. LSM, like all other joint degree programs (M&T, Huntsman, Health Care Management), is designed so that students don’t actually fulfill the entire curriculum of each school. That said, you still are taking an enormous number of classes (at least 5, sometime 6 classes a semester).</p>
<p>Hi guys. I noticed there’s not much information from prior students in the program out there. I want to help fix that with my two cents. </p>
<p>I was in the inaugural class of LSM, class of 2006-2010. There are some incredibly competent, interesting, and ambitious students in the program, 7 years later some of the guys I met freshman year are still near and dear to me. That being said, there were a lot of people I thought were very mediocre in the program too. Standards have gotten stricter over the years, but I would absolutely encourage everyone who’s interested to apply, not too much additional work, and if you may be pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>The curriculum sounds tough, combining two very different fields of study, but it’s definitely manageable. Topics are diverse, so are topics within a single degree degree, let’s take pre-med as an example. The difference between a math class and a chemistry class is arguably as great as that between a chemistry class and a finance class. If you can handle the range of materials within a given major, you should be able to handle the two in LSM.</p>
<p>How many students stick with it, and where do they end up post graduation? There were definitely a fair share of dropouts, and over the course of four years many people (like myself) realize one aspect of the program isn’t great for them (though I did stick through with it). The flexibility allowed is incredible. For example, I started out in college thinking pre-med, dropped those ambitions mid year, and now I’m happily working at a tech focused hedge fund. If I had not joined LSM, I would probably be in med school right now, which I know isn’t the right field for me. While I and a handful of peers have chosen to avoid either science or finance post graduation, there are many many many alum’s who merge the two. You will find many LSM’ers at Wall Street healthcare banking groups, healthcare related hedge funds, and healthcare related venture capital.</p>
<p>Hope this helps, and good luck to all of you who aspire to join the program.</p>